irtualization is recognized
as a key to better utilization
of servers, which by exten-
sion will lead to more ef cient data
centers. Increasingly, however, it s
also being seen as the founda-
tion on which all other ef ciency
endeavors should be built.
"Three years ago virtualization was
a new technology that was neither
as reliable or as effective as it is now,
with all of the redundant features it
has today," said Dennis Tolliver, enter-
prise server channel sales specialist
at Hewlett-Packard.
Much of the current application
and management software is written
with virtualization in mind, providing
the redundancy and scalability that s
needed to spread workloads over
larger numbers of servers to achieve
higher ef ciencies.
Go beyond the traditional idea of
ef ciencies and virtualization offers
even more. It s driving more inno-
vative and cost-effective methods
of data recovery, image manage-
ment, lifecycle management and
even backup, for example.
"When we work with agencies
on virtualization they certainly
start out by looking to traditional
elements of ef ciency, such as the
power and cooling savings they
will make," said Keenan Baker,
inside solutions architect, servers
and storage, at CDW Government
(CDW-G). "But as they go through
the implementation they also real-
ize it eases a lot of other issues,
such as bringing machines on line
faster and easier, that also translate
into cost savings."
It could take some time for this
to become part of the mainstream,
however. By and large, agencies
are turning to virtualization with tra-
ditional expectations of power and
cooling savings, said Baker. Other
bene ts, such as enhanced man-
agement capabilities and consoli-
dation of management interfaces,
don t yet gure into a lot of buying
decisions.
Agencies need to take a three-to
ve-year outlook on what their invest-
ments will do for them, Tolliver said.
What most organizations mean
when they say they are near full
virtualization is that they are run-
ning virtualization on something
like 80 percent of their servers, said
David Cappuccio, managing vice
president at Gartner responsible for
data center research. But if you ask
them what the server performance
levels are in peak hours, it s only in
the mid 20s.
"What they should be looking for
instead is what those peak perfor-
mance levels are, set a target for
what they want them to be, and
then put enough workload on the
servers to hit that target," he said.
"Sometimes It could be one or two
workloads, other times 40. But the
idea is to get the most performance
out of the servers during peak
hours, and that way they d get the
most data center utilization."
Sponsored Report
"Three years ago virtualization was a new
technology that was neither as reliable or
as effective as it is now, with all of the
redundant features it has today."
--- Dennis Tolliver, enterprise server channel
sales specialist at Hewlett-Packard
THE EFFICIENT DATA CENTER:
OPTIMIZATION
Virtualization:
The key to driving efficiency
FULL REPORT ONLINE
Go to FCW.com/2013EfficientData
2. Rethinking data center efficiency
3. Storage plays starring role in efficiency efforts
4. Improving efficiency: It's all about metrics
5. Is the containerized data center an answer?
Other The Efficient Data Center:
Optimization Report Articles